God Cares
Andrea Merrill / Worship Arts Director
“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that He hears us – whatever we ask – we know that we have what we asked of him.” 1 John 5:14-15
“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” Matthew 6:26
God sometimes teaches me lessons – life lessons – at times that I don’t expect it. I guess that’s how He works. All of life can be a lesson if we are paying attention.
I was never a “pet person” until Mike and I adopted our first dog a few years into our marriage. We saw a picture of this scrappy little Shih Tzu/Lasa Apso mix and knew he needed to be ours. The rescue agency brought him over for an overnight trial run, but we knew as soon as he was in our living room that this wasn’t a trial and he was here to stay! Pets will do that to you – they suck you in and wrap your heart right up! Gimli was a quirky little dog who never barked, except in his dreams when I suppose he was chasing cats or protecting his food. He was scared of his own shadow and would run if we dropped something on the kitchen floor. Fire works almost killed him EVERY SINGLE YEAR until we got wise enough to wrap him in blankets and put him in his cozy crate. Gimli was quirky, but he was the sweetest, most patient dog and we loved him like crazy.
A couple weeks ago, after bringing him home from a routine grooming, Gimli got sick. It didn’t seem like anything major until, all of a sudden, it was. Gimli passed away on a Sunday night with Mike and me and our other little Shih Tzu surrounding him at home. Watching our little guy suffer and then finally succumb to what was happening in his body was heart-wrenching. I’d never witnessed death and it caught me off-guard, but God is so amazing. While we sat and watched Gimli struggle and just stroked his back and spoke love to him, my husband shot up a quick prayer: “God, don’t let him suffer.” And just like that, Gimli left us. God heard our little prayer – a prayer that was for our dog but also for us. Watching him suffer was terrible, so God listened and acted for all of us.
My life lesson: God cares. He cares so much about the little things and the not-so-little things. He cares about what we care about, and He listens. As hard as the weekend was for us, it could’ve been so much worse, but God stepped in right when He was asked to.
God cares. Sometimes He’s just waiting for us to lift up a prayer so that when the answer comes, we KNOW it came from Him.
“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that He hears us – whatever we ask – we know that we have what we asked of him.” 1 John 5:14-15
“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” Matthew 6:26
God sometimes teaches me lessons – life lessons – at times that I don’t expect it. I guess that’s how He works. All of life can be a lesson if we are paying attention.
I was never a “pet person” until Mike and I adopted our first dog a few years into our marriage. We saw a picture of this scrappy little Shih Tzu/Lasa Apso mix and knew he needed to be ours. The rescue agency brought him over for an overnight trial run, but we knew as soon as he was in our living room that this wasn’t a trial and he was here to stay! Pets will do that to you – they suck you in and wrap your heart right up! Gimli was a quirky little dog who never barked, except in his dreams when I suppose he was chasing cats or protecting his food. He was scared of his own shadow and would run if we dropped something on the kitchen floor. Fire works almost killed him EVERY SINGLE YEAR until we got wise enough to wrap him in blankets and put him in his cozy crate. Gimli was quirky, but he was the sweetest, most patient dog and we loved him like crazy.
A couple weeks ago, after bringing him home from a routine grooming, Gimli got sick. It didn’t seem like anything major until, all of a sudden, it was. Gimli passed away on a Sunday night with Mike and me and our other little Shih Tzu surrounding him at home. Watching our little guy suffer and then finally succumb to what was happening in his body was heart-wrenching. I’d never witnessed death and it caught me off-guard, but God is so amazing. While we sat and watched Gimli struggle and just stroked his back and spoke love to him, my husband shot up a quick prayer: “God, don’t let him suffer.” And just like that, Gimli left us. God heard our little prayer – a prayer that was for our dog but also for us. Watching him suffer was terrible, so God listened and acted for all of us.
My life lesson: God cares. He cares so much about the little things and the not-so-little things. He cares about what we care about, and He listens. As hard as the weekend was for us, it could’ve been so much worse, but God stepped in right when He was asked to.
God cares. Sometimes He’s just waiting for us to lift up a prayer so that when the answer comes, we KNOW it came from Him.